


Iterum

by riverofg0ld



Category: EXO (Band), Monsta X (Band), Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, F/F, F/M, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 12:03:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18498583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverofg0ld/pseuds/riverofg0ld
Summary: Kyungsoo, a simple peasant, wants nothing to do with any other people beside his own family, much less the Crown. He lives a quiet life with his grandmother and two sisters in a hut in the woods that borders a small, quaint village, far from the walls that surrounds the Queen's castle. One day, his world turns upside down – quite literally – as he is kidnapped and taken to an unknown place and is obliged to do things he would've never otherwise. After that, it's up to his sisters, a charming bard, a deserted soldier, the daughter of a merchant, a dethroned prince and his own will to save him from the clutches of his worst nightmare.





	Iterum

      Kyungsoo didn't know what hit him. Or who, really. But he wished he did, just so he could give this individual a piece of his mind.

      Who in their right, peaceful mind would manhandle someone like this? I swear, this shoulder is going to give me the worst cramp, he thought as his kidnapper adjusted his hold on him, better positioning the young man on his shoulder. At least for him, because for Kyungsoo it rather felt like the worst position to be in the world.

      He tried screaming, asking for help, but he felt as if his mind and his mouth were taking a trip far, far away. To different places.

_Seriously, what's going on?_

      All he could feel was the prod of a muscled shoulder under his ribs, the rasp of something cold against his throat, and darkness around his vision provided by the foulest smelling potato sack. At least, beyond that smell of old potatoes, he could still sense the forest and the damp smell of soaked earth, so he knew he was still in the woods.

 _Am I too far from home?_ , he thought while he tried squirming, just to see if he could get a reaction out of this person and recognize whoever was clearly mistreating him, but his body wouldn't respond to his desperate commands as well. It was as if he had been cast under a spell.

 

* * *

 

      Joohyun woke up with a start. It was still dark outside; no light invaded her family's hut through her bedroom window. She could see her sister sleeping soundly in the bed next to hers, but something felt astray. The hairs on her arms rose as her feet touched the cold wood floor, and she held her nightgown closer to her body as she quietly made her way across the room and left it, silently closing the door behind her.

      There was a lit candle on the kitchen table, so someone had been there earlier. _Grandma must have stayed up late throwing her dice again_ , she thought as she stood by the table observing the flickering flame for a few moments.

      She crept closer to the bedroom her grandmother shared with her twin brother. Afraid of waking up the two people inside, she quietly opened the door, suppressing a hiss when it made the slightest of sounds. Luckily, she managed to move it enough to fit her head through the opening and take a look inside.

      She could see as well as hear her grandmother sleeping, as her snores weren't the quietest, but something else gave her pause. As she looked at her brother's corner of the room, something twisted her guts. With the low light from the kitchen, she could see only half of his bed, but it was enough to stop her heart for a beat of a second. It was completely empty.

 

* * *

  

      "Kyungsoo! Can you hear me, Kyungsoo?!"

      Joohyun's lungs hurt as she continued to shout and run looking for her brother, her throat constricting. A few hours had passed since she found his empty bed, and while her grandmother tried scrying for him in the darkest bowl she had in the cabin, she looked for him in the woods with her sister.

 _Hells, where are you, stupid head?_ , she wondered as she paused and leaned her body against a tree, gasping for breath. It had been a few hours from sunrise already, and she had been searching for her brother for a while now.

      "I found tracks on the ground north of the cabin, footprints for two people, but none of them are his, the feet are too big, it doesn't make sense", her younger sister, Seungwan, panted as she came around the tree to face Joohyun, also stopping to catch her breath, her chest heaving with the effort of frantically searching for her little brother for hours.

      "I think... I don't know, I think he might have been meditating right by our porch or something, because his sandals are there, but his footprints stop just as another set starts. It's as if--Joohyun, I don't want to believe this, but," she stopped for a moment and looked into her sister's eyes, filled with dread and worry. "Joohyun, I think someone took him."

  

* * *

 

      "Grandma, have you seen anything?", Seungwan asked as she sat down next to her grandmother on the kitchen table, putting her left hand comfortingly over the older woman's right shoulder. She tried to be reasonable and not to get desperate, but, as the hours passed, she couldn't help but get more and more anxious as the three women in the house wondered where the youngest member of their little family could have gone.

      "No, dear, I... I tried all I could, but it felt as if something tried to block me from seeing even the slightest vision of him or his whereabouts."

      Seungwan felt her grandmother deflate more and more as the seconds passed with no clue of where her brother is appearing. She more felt than heard the old woman sigh dejectedly, and she startled with a yelp as her grandmother suddenly got up from her chair and smacked her hand across the deep, dark bowl in front of her, making the wood object and its liquids fly across the kitchen and wet the wall.

      They were silent for a few seconds, with only the sound of the wind outside and of the bowl settling on the ground in the background disturbing the quietness that fell over them.

      "What is the point of this, of all of this", her grandmother said as she gestured with her arm in an arc to the bowl on the ground, the herbs hanging by the ceiling all over the place, the many potions in their cabinet, "if I can't keep you all safe? I have taken care of you for many years now, and I swore to myself that I would never let anything happen to you three from the day you were born, but now... The Gods may have given me a gift, and I bear it with pride, but they might have also taken me one of my most precious treasures, and that's Kyungsoo." she finished, looking down at the table as if she could burn holes through it.

      Seungwan struggled against unshed tears as her grandmother spoke, for she had never seen the old woman so sad in her twenty-two years of existence. Her oldest memories were of herself playing on her grandmother's lap, of trying to steal her glasses, of playing around in the mud outside with her sister and brother. Happy memories. But she knew that her grandmother bore the weight of deeper, sadder memories, as she had seen the rise and fall of many people, a few being their own parents. And now, with her brother gone, she knew that this would be only another sad memory added to her pile of ghosts she would have to revive in her dreams.

      Suddenly, she remembered the day her grandmother told her about her special powers, about how she could search for and see things that where otherwise invisible to the untrained eye and mind. She remembered the day Joohyun almost died, and how their grandmother saved her.

 

_She was only twelve winters of age when her grandmother had to go away for a few days in order to gather a few specific, hard to find herbs in the depths of the woods they lived in. Both Seungwan and Kyungsoo were under Joohyun's care for those days, and the oldest of the three made sure that she was taking good care of her siblings, making them food, taking them out to play in the sun, and even bathing together in the stream that ran a few yards down their home._

_Seungwan remembers Kyungsoo always being the most subdued of them, maybe because he was the youngest, or maybe because that was just his nature. But, during those few days, she remembers him shining and smiling the brightest he had ever seen. It's not that their grandmother's presence made him quieter or sadder, but, when she was around, he had to have lessons with her about something she didn't understand (yet) for most of the day. They would be locked away in their room, or would isolate themselves in the woods for hours, sometimes days, and Kyungsoo would always look dead-tired after his lessons, as if a part of his very being had left him after spending hours with the old woman._

_When she or Joohyun tried to ask him about it, he would always say the same thing: Grandma doesn't want me talking about this yet, please wait a little longer. T_ _hey remained curious, of course, but both of them were too polite (or maybe too scared of their grandmother) to pry more, so they always let it go._

_However, on the second day their grandmother had left, Seungwan wished she knew more about her brother._

_Joohyun and Kyungsoo had taken a basket of dirt clothing down to the stream in order to wash them that day. Seungwan had stayed behind, responsible for their lunch. She enjoyed the quiet that morning. Things were always loud between her and Joohyun, as they liked to play around (and sometimes fight) all the time, and, even though she loved her brother to death, his silent presence always felt a little overwhelming, as if he was somehow bigger, and more, than they could see._

_While she washed a few vegetables, getting ready to cut them, she smiled fondly as she thought about her siblings, laughing a little as she remembered their water fight just the day before._

_Adding the vegetables to the broth she had been slowly cooking through the morning, Seungwan decided there was nothing more she could do but wait, so she left the house through the backdoor and sat on a flat stone under a beautiful maple tree in order to rest her feet for a bit._

_She had been leaning against the tree trunk for a few minutes, almost dozing off, when she heard someone – a girl – scream. She jerked herself up, staying alert for any more noises, when she heard another scream, but this time more familiar._

_"Seung-Seungwan! Help!"_

_What happened that day is something that Seungwan will never be able to forget. She remembers running in the direction she thought the screams came from, she remembers finding her brother kneeing next to the stream, desperately filling the now empty basket with water in order to put out the fire that consumed all of the clothing they were supposed to wash. She remembers seeing her sister on the ground, struggling to breath, her shirt completely burned, littered with scorch marks, her chest as red as the pepper she used for their lunch._

_She remembers shouting, asking what happened, her brother trying to answer her while crying, their dirty clothes burning away in the afternoon air._

_She remembers Kyungsoo holding Joohyun's hand in a death grip, asking for forgiveness._

_She remembers Joohyun smiling, saying "_ don't worry about it, stupid head" _, even though she could barely breath or open her eyes._

_She remembers asking what do I do?_

_But she also remembers her grandmother appearing just a few minutes later, gathering Joohyun in her arms, running for their home. She remembers grabbing her brother's hand, pulling him as they both ran after their grandmother, trying to keep up the best they could. She remembers gathering potions and herbs from all over their home as her grandmother would ask for them, mixing them and giving many things for Joohyun to eat and drink, applying all the right ointments onto her skin, making her better._

_She remembers her brother standing still just a few feet from the kitchen table where his sister lay, regaining the color on her face and the strength to breath. His eyes were downcast, his demeanor the saddest she had ever seen, his tears falling to his feet, him mumbling sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, repeatedly._

_She remembers her grandmother hugging her still form, staring in shock at her sister, now a little bit better, breathing evenly. She remembers her brother being hugged as well, her grandmother whispering things in his ear that were only meant for him._

_But, most importantly, she remembers her grandmother explaining to her later that night, after both of her siblings were deep in sleep, what happened that afternoon._

_Kyungsoo had been born with special powers, magical abilities that could make him conjure up flames out of thin air. The lessons he had with the old woman were meant to help him understand his powers better, and control them so he wouldn't hurt anyone. However, what happened that day was something out of control for a nine year old boy. He tried to save his unsuspecting sister from a poisonous snake as it skittered across the ground towards her. To do that, he shot flames from his outstretched palms without thinking, and his emotions took over him. So worried with protecting his sister, he forgot to measure up his power, and raw magic shot out of his hands in an explosion, making all of their unwashed clothes burst up in flames, hurting his sister across the chest in the process._

_At least the snake perished in the end._

_Later that same day, after both of her siblings were deep in sleep, her grandmother told Seungwan that the Gods gave her powers of her own. In her own words, she was nowhere near as talented or powerful as Kyungsoo was, but she could do some damage of her own, although not directly. No, her powers were the type that could aid someone from behind the front lines, making them the perfect strategist or support system. She could see things, sometimes even dream them, and that made her somewhat of a clairvoyant. That's how she could get back home in time to save Joohyun, for a vision had taken over her mind and body when she was just a few hours away from home._

 

      Thinking about this, Seungwan slowly got up from the chair, walking around the table to stand in front of her grandmother. Wiping the few tears that escaped from her eyes off her cheek, she held both of the older woman hands in hers, looking straight into her eyes for a few silent moments.

      "I know it pains you to not know where he is, to not be able to see even the smallest trace of him. I know I'm not as good or as powerful as the both of you, but I can, and will, promise you one thing: I'll go after him, I'll find him, and I'll bring him home, even if it takes me forever."

      Just as she finished making her promise, Seungwan heard the front door opening with a bang, and her sister’s usually quiet voice as loud as ever.

      "I found something!"

      Joohyun ran to them, holding something close to her chest. As she got closer to the other two women in the house, she opened her right hand, and Seungwan couldn't believe what she was seeing.

      There, in Joohyun's small and calloused palm, Seungwan saw the Queen's face on a golden coin.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first (published) fanfiction, and I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
>  
> 
> I'm always open to constructive criticism, and any comments you want to make on the story. Also, more pairings may come in the future. :)
> 
> More chapters should be coming soon. Thank you for reading!


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